BMW i8 Price Guide

The BMW i8 was the car that defined what a 21st-century BMW could look like. A plug-in hybrid sports car with butterfly doors, a 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine, a pair of electric motors, a carbon-fibre passenger cell, and the most dramatic production body BMW had produced since the M1. It was the future as BMW imagined it in 2014, and it remains striking.

The Car

Produced from 2015 to 2020 as a coupe and from 2018 as a Roadster, the i8 used a 1,499cc three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine producing 231bhp at the rear wheels, combined with a 143bhp electric motor at the front and a second 131bhp motor at the rear from 2018. Total system output reached 374bhp in the revised specification. The Life Drive architecture used a carbon-fibre reinforced plastic passenger cell on an aluminium drive module. The whole structure weighed in at just 249kg for the full chassis. Butterfly doors were standard on the coupe. The Roadster used a soft-top roof.

What Goes Wrong

The electric battery capacity is small by current standards, offering around 37 miles of electric-only range in real-world use. Charging infrastructure compatibility has improved but early cars used older standards. The three-cylinder petrol runs on a version of BMW’s efficiency cycle that requires premium fuel and regular service. Tyre costs are high and the bespoke sizes run out quickly.

Buying

The i8 has depreciated dramatically from its £100,000+ new price, meaning used examples offer extraordinary visual impact at a fraction of the cost. The 2018 Roadster with its updated specification and open roof is the preferred variant.

The BMW i8 is a design-led purchase above all else: the performance, while adequate, is not the point. The point is that nothing else looks like it. Still.